New Privilege Rule 534 decimates mental health provider-client confidentiality and effectively nullifies the strong confidentiality protections enacted by NJ Legislators and Governors over the past 4 decades. It goes into effect on July 1st and will create bad national precedent. Rule 534 potentially exposes mental health clients to having their deepest, sometimes shameful secrets, routinely exposed through lawyers’ discovery requests and will require therapists to testify in open court in new, unprecedented ways. Rule 534 will greatly increase the number of subpoenas and discovery requests served on mental health providers and facilities. It penalizes and permanently strips confidentiality when clients that ask their providers to advocate in any proceeding. Rule 534 will automatically go into effect on July 1, 2016 unless the Legislature and Governor take immediate action. Text of the Rule can be found at http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/notices/2015/n150915a.pdf 

Rule 534 will apply to all mental health-related communications between clients and their licensed counselors, alcohol and drug counselors, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and doctors, nurses, psychoanalysts, physician assistants, marriage and family therapists, and midwives, the vast majority of which are totally unaware of the contents or import of Rule 534.

Rule 534 will deter people from seeking mental health or addiction treatment or from confiding in their current treatment providers. Rule 534 creates a complex scheme containing 13 exceptions to mental health provider-client confidentiality. Its four pages of legalese will confound therapists’ ability to obtain their clients’ informed consent for treatment. The Rule 534 confidentiality exceptions will undermine mental health providers' ability to establish therapeutic trust and chill mental health providers' ethical obligations to advocate on behalf of their clients.

Rule 534 was praised by lawyers and condemned by mental health providers. In written testimony to the NJ Supreme Court, Professional Mental Health Counselors and Clinical Social Workers uniformly condemned Rule 534: "would 'compromise client confidentiality' and deter people from going to social workers;" "if a therapist told a patient all of the legally required exceptions, the patient would terminate the counseling session;" "would discourage mental health treatment;" "creates a 'confusing array of additional exceptions that are not currently in place;'" "will be interpreted 'very loosely' so as to allow confidential information to be disclosed;" and, ""it will create more lawsuits."

One of the most egregious provisions causes a client to lose confidentiality for all time if the client asks the provider to provide written or oral testimony in any proceeding, such as an unemployment, benefits, child protection, or disability proceeding. Clients will lose all confidentiality protection in a civil suit for damages that resulted from conduct that constitutes a crime. This will chill, for example, people with gambling, drug, or alcohol addictions, that have stolen from their employers, families, stores, or other third parties, from seeking mental health help to curb their dysfunctional behaviors. Clients may also lose confidentiality if they have ever told a third, non-spouse, party about their mental health condition or treatment.

The beneficiaries of Rule 534 will be the lawyers who will be able to obtain adverse parties’ mental health information and use that mental health information in settlement negotiations or in courtroom trials. Please share this petition with friends, family, professional and consumer organizations, and anyone else that has an interest in promoting access to confidential mental health and drug and alcohol treatment. Advocate for health clients and mental health professionals by contacting your NJ State Senator’s, NJ State Representative’s, and Governor Christie’s offices.